Title
Rushing
(circa 1922)
Artist
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Details
- Date
- (circa 1922)
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas on paperboard
- Dimensions
- 65.6 x 91.3 cm board; 82.3 x 106.9 x 4.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed l.l. corner, black oil "G.COSSINGTON.SMITH". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1967
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- OA8.1967
- Copyright
- © Estate of Grace Cossington Smith
- Artist information
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Grace Cossington Smith
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Cossington Smith captures the drama of a crowd in 'Rushing', which depicts commuters clamouring down to the ferries of Circular Quay to get home after work. The flying scarf and fallen hat emphasise the speed at which the travellers are moving and the peril and claustrophobia of a, mostly faceless, city crowd. The steep gangplank and diagonal composition accentuates the dynamism of the painting.
A brilliant colourist, Cossington Smith’s work of the early 1920s adopts a darker palette than the vivid colours she is usually associated with. Inspired by a visit to Sydney in 1920 by the tonalist painter and teacher Max Meldrum, her paintings became studies in tone, rather than colour, a practice she had abandoned by 1925.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 12 exhibitions
Forty-fourth Annual Exhibition of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales (1923), Exhibition Gallery Department of Public Instruction, Sydney, Aug 1923 -
Acquisitions 1967, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Mar 1968–01 Apr 1968
Grace Cossington Smith (1973-74), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 Jun 1973–15 Jul 1973
Grace Cossington Smith (1973-74), Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 06 Sep 1973–04 Oct 1973
Grace Cossington Smith (1973-74), Western Australian Art Gallery, Perth, 06 Dec 1973–02 Jan 1974
Grace Cossington Smith (1973-74), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 11 Jan 1974–10 Feb 1974
Grace Cossington Smith (1973-74), National Gallery of Victoria [St Kilda Road], Melbourne, 26 Mar 1974–28 Apr 1974
Aspects of Australian art: Art Gallery of New South Wales Travelling Art Exhibition 1976, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1976–1977
The Artist and the City, Art Museum Armidale, Armidale, 01 Nov 1983–04 Nov 1983
The Artist and the City, Tamworth City Gallery, Tamworth, 08 Nov 1983–11 Nov 1983
The Artist and the City, Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Manly, 15 Nov 1983–20 Nov 1983
The Artist and the City, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 26 Nov 1983–18 Dec 1983
Australian icons: twenty artists from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Aug 2000–03 Dec 2000
Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibition (2005), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 04 Mar 2005–13 Jun 2005
Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibition (2005), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 29 Jul 2005–09 Oct 2005
Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibition (2005), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29 Oct 2005–15 Jan 2006
Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibition (2005), Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 11 Feb 2006–30 Apr 2006
Modern Times, Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo, 01 Aug 2008–08 Feb 2009
Modern Times, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 23 Mar 2009–12 Jul 2009
Modern Times, State Library of Queensland, South Brisbane, 31 Jul 2009–08 Nov 2009
Australian modern masterpieces from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, 05 Oct 2011–27 Nov 2011
Australian modern masterpieces from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, 10 Dec 2011–04 Mar 2012
Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Jul 2013–07 Oct 2013
Destination Sydney, S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Rocks, 11 Dec 2015–21 Feb 2016
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 21 publications
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Robin Bruckner, Art and Design Book 1, Sydney, 1995, 129 (illus.).
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Louise Chamberlin, Art In Sight, Sydney, 1996, 141, 144, 145, 149, 151, 155, 171.
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Deborah Edwards., Australian Collection Focus: Grace Cossington Smith The Lacquer Room 1935-36, 'Secular light and the curve of the chairs', Sydney, 1999.
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Graham Ferres and Susan Ferres, Mouse Art: Creating Art On The Computer, Sydney, 1998, (colour illus.). plate no. 12; NOTE: image located between pages 56-57
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Deborah Hart, Grace Cossington Smith, 'A room of her own', pg. 11-25, Canberra, 2005, 21 (colour illus.), 22, 113, 114 (colour illus.), 127-128, 175.
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Bruce James, Grace Cossington Smith, 'Centre of a city', pg. 53-61, Sydney, 1990, 54, 55 (colour illus.), 161. plate no. 18
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Bruce James, Australian painters of the twentieth century, 'Grace Cossington Smith', pg. 40-51, Sydney, 2000, 43.
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Craig Judd, Viewpoints: visual arts case studies, 'Aspects of figuration in Australian art 1788-1996', pg. 61-77, Port Melbourne, 1998, 71 (colour illus.). fig.no. 7.10
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Brian Ladd and Alan Krell, The Artist & the City, Sydney, 1983, 6, 7 (illus.). cat.no. 4
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D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, London, 1997, front cover (illus.).
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Tony Lenten, City art, Victoria, 1978, 29 (illus.).
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Robert Lindsay., Aspects of Australian Art: Art Gallery of New South Wales travelling art exhibition 1976, 'Grace Cossington Smith', Sydney, 1976, (illus.). cat.no. 31; not paginated
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Denise Mimmocchi, Sydney moderns: art for a new world, 'Making Sydney modern: the artistic shaping of the postwar city', pg. 66-85, Sydney, 2013, 83 (colour illus.), 316.
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Drusilla Modjeska, Stravinsky's lunch, 'To Paint What She Saw: Grace Cossington Smith', pg. 203-334, Sydney, 1999, (colour illus.). plate no. 23
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John Slater, Through artists' eyes: Australian suburbs and their cities 1919-1945, 'Continuity and change', pg. 35-70, Melbourne, 2004, 69, 70, 98, 99 (colour illus.), 100. illus.no. 81
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Ann Stephen, Modern times: the untold story of modernism in Australia, '6 The body at the scene of Modernism', pg. 44-55, Sydney, 2008, 45 (colour illus., detail), 46 (colour illus.).
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Daniel Thomas, Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly, 'Grace Cossington Smith', pg. 510-521, Sydney, Jan 1970, 516 (illus.), 517.
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Daniel Thomas, Art and Australia, 'Grace Cossington Smith', pg. 300-312, Sydney, Mar 1967, (illus.).
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Donald Williams, In our own image: the story of Australian art, Sydney, 1995, 103 (colour illus.).
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1967 Acquisitions, Sydney, 1967, 21. cat.no. 25
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Editor Unknown (Editor), The Australasian, Melbourne, 18 Aug 1923, page unknown. Review of the 'Royal Art Society of New South Wales 44th Annual Exhibition' held at the Department of Public Instruction, 11 August 1923, cat.no. 90 'Rushing' 15 guineas.
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